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Dewey Wins
After a number of cartoons filled with high stakes, dramatic
staging, immersive world-building, and even an onscreen death, it’s kind of
jarring to go back to light-hearted Beach City fare. That said, if you look past the surface,
you’ll notice that what actually goes on isn’t too light-hearted at all. I mean, this town had to evacuate when
Peridot first invaded Earth and endured violent earthquakes when the Cluster
emerged. Afterwards, things just went
back to normal as if they didn’t happen.
That’s not the case here.
Innocent
humans getting abducted with one of them still in space is treated as an issue
to be dealt with. As a result, it’s
fitting that the main driving force of this cartoon’s plot is the town getting
a new mayor. After all, in all his appearances,
Mayor Dewey really hasn’t been good for the position, putting more emphasis on
the bravado than doing a good job. In fact, despite brief appearances, his
competition, Nanefua, easily has a lot more promise. She’s taken an active role in Gem attacks
before and even called Dewey out for his bad practices. Again through all this being a result of
recent Gem events, this instantly becomes one of the more engaging Beach City
cartoons.
However, there’s one thing
holding it back from greatness, and it’s a big one. The previous cartoon had Steven claim his
main goal is to let everyone know that everything is ok now that he’s back on
Earth. Despite that, it doesn’t feel
right that he comes off as inconsiderate of how others must be feeling about
his decision to surrender himself to Homeworld and the after effects. First, he doesn’t get Connie feeling upset
over giving himself up since doing so went against the promise he made long ago
that they’d face any threat together. It
gets so bad that she leaves without even getting him see sense, and even Lion
sides with her. Steven is usually
sensitive to feelings, so how could he not get that when Connie says she’s
hurt, she’s emotionally hurt? Though she
should also be considerate that at the time, the situation did seem hopeless
enough and Steven really was only trying to do what was right. Other cartoons will make this point stand out
more.
Anyway, Steven is also
inconsiderate of Lars’ well-being. It’s
true leaving him behind was what Lars wanted, but Steven takes the issue way
too lightly when explaining it to Sadie and doesn’t think to tell Lars’
parents. Finally, through helping Dewey
out of feeling he’s being blamed for something that wasn’t his fault, Steven
makes things worse by saying he doesn’t get involved in anything. He should probably know that as the man in
charge of town, he should. Still, I give
credit for Steven taking responsibility for being a cause of the invasion,
visibly putting in a lot of effort into helping Dewey’s campaign.
During the campaign though, Nanefua makes a
passionate speech of how the town needs to work more as a unit to keep itself
strong in all matters. It’s sounds like
a good cause to keep all humans safe which is one of our heroes’ main goals of
the series. Her points are so strong,
even Dewey feels he has no chance against her, resigning from the race and
honestly putting himself at his most endearing.
As for Steven, this gets him to see sense of matters, particularly
understanding why Connie is upset.
However, the ending and cartoons to come feature consequences in place
as she doesn’t answer her phone.
The
uncharacteristic obliviousness holds the cartoon back some, but the ways it
shows how big recent Gem events really were in a simple Beach City story are
worthy of credit.
B
Season 4 Ranking
1. I Am My Mom
2. Storm in the Room
3. Mindful Education
4. That Will Be All
5. Steven’s Dream
6. Last One Out of Beach City
7. Are You My Dad?
8. The Zoo
9. The Good Lars
10. Gem Heist
11. Gem Harvest
12. Three Gems and a Baby
13. Adventures in Light Distortion
14. Buddy’s Book
15. Know Your Fusion
16. The New Crystal Gems
17. Lion 4: Alternate Ending
18. Doug Out
19. Kindergarten Kid
20. Room for Ruby
21. Future Boy Zoltron
22. Tiger Philanthropist
23. Rocknaldo
24. Onion Gang
Season 5 Ranking
1. The Trial
2. Off Colors
3. Stuck Together
4. Lars’ Head
5. Dewey Wins
The next Steven Universe review shows more of the downside of Steven's fallout with Connie as it gets in the way of potentially exploring big Gem topics.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is Episode 57 of Animaniacs.
If you would like to check out other Steven Universe reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
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